


One Monocle To Spy On Them All

by DG_Fletcher



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Crossover, Fast and loose and funny, M/M, Pretty much a crack crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:40:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DG_Fletcher/pseuds/DG_Fletcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixteen Deep Space Niners stuffed into the role of being 13 dwarves, 1 hobbit, 1 wizard... and one Gollum, and Garak is bound-and-determined to make sure nobody figures this out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Monocle To Spy On Them All

**Author's Note:**

> This is an informal, not-to-be-taken-seriously, slang-heavy speedwrite I built after one of my Facebook friends said this amazing pic of Garak's actor, Andrew Robinson http://goo.gl/11l9Y6 looked like Smeagol! Just... no. Nope nope NOPE.

POP

Everything was dark and everything was echo-y. Mostly dark, with the sound of water dripping into a pond. It was cold here, and WAY too cold. Why must everywhere always be so damn -cold-?

The echo-y dripping silence was broken by the sound of shoes in the distance, losing grip on sand and tumbling down. 

"Ouch!" said a familiar voice. That's Bashir's voice, meaning that was Bashir out there, scuffling around on gravel, echoing through the dark. 

There was the mechanical click of Bashir's hand hitting his com badge, but no electronic response beep. "Bashir to anybody? Combadge is down." 

There was more scraping on gravel.

"What is this thing? Odd." Bashir said to himself.

Unfortunately, figuring out how to get anywhere in dark and unfamiliar and cold is always hard. Sound wasn't a Cardassian's strong point, and learning echolocation on the fly wasn't either. Given what information was extractable from the sound however, there was water between where Garak was and the damp gravel Bashir was scuffling around on. 

That being said, Garak was always prepared for something. He had a little toolkit with a small flashlight. 

There was an icky-looking, downright -gross- excuse for a boat, but it would have to do, and this is most certainly an island in a lake, with less floor space than a runabout.

"Don't go anywhere," Garak said. "I'm coming to you." 

Ew that boat is gross. But better than the water. The flicks that splash up are cold; the water's going to be cold enough to kill. 

"Where -are- we?" Bashir asks. 

"I was hoping you'd know," Garak snips. "Given the rudimentary appearance of what tools are available here, I figured we'd landed ourselves in one of you and OBrien's little holosuite games."

Normally, Garak could just -tell- if he was in a holodeck or not. The refresh cycle on a holodeck didn't synch up for him, and whether that was a Cardassian thing or just him, he'd not ever bothered to find out. 

Here though, it was too dark to tell. The refresh cycle refreshed from straight black to straight black. It could refresh at a rate of six frames per second and it would still look like just black. 

"I don't think it's a holodeck," Bashir said. "Although it might be Founder Technology. They can create some significant mental simulations."

That was also fully plausible. 

The boat scraped up against the gravel and Garak got out and wished they were somewhere to wash up. 

That. Boat. Was. Gross. 

In the too-sharp light of the flashlight, Bashir was in uniform, but scuffed up and dirty, with a hole in one pant leg. Shining the flashlight on the surrounding rocks showed very little. Pointed off in some directions, it revealed nothing but black nothing. In other directions, there were rocks or a gravel walkway. 

Wandering through what was visible led them up a slippery, damp gravel walkway to larger corridors, some of which were lit by ancient, oil-spitting, tangibly-burning fire torches. 

There still wasn't enough light to tell is this was a holodeck or not. Usually the part where the refresh rate didn't synch up for him was an annoyance he tried to ignore, and what was fireflicker and what was renderflicker was hard to tell. 

Going one direction led off to a massive, still-barely-lit cave full of Jem Hadar milling about and army-training. 

They turned around and went the other way!

That way led out.

The cave mouth let out onto the side of a mountain with an enormous view out of it. No refresh rate buzz around the edges. Either this wasn't a holodeck, or someone found out he didn't see them "just right". The mountains looked like civilization had tried to live here and failed multiple times. Roads eaten by rockslides and little outposts ruined and grown over. If this was "just a holodeck program", the detail in the layering would have taken considerable programming. 

"Dr Bashir!!" That was Jadzia off a distance down the hill, in dirtied Starfleet uniform. "We thought we lost you back there! We have no idea where we are, but Kira's got a map, and OBrien says the map's familiar but can't figure out when the last time he saw it was."

They followed Jadzia down the crisscrossing, ancient trails to a clearing at the base of the mountain. 

It was quite a crowd, consisting of Sisko, Kira, OBrien, Keiko, Odo, Quark, Rom, Jake, Nog, -Morn-, Worf, Kasidy, and Leeta. 

Kira and OBrien were arguing about a map. 

"I don't think it's an actual map!" Kira was saying. "It's more like a cryptic illustration."

"It's a map of something. I just don't remember where I've -seen- this map before. I think I was what, eight?" OBrien said.

Keiko looked at it. "Even if it is a map, it's not a map of where we are. That's one mountain, clearly labeled the Lonely Mountain. We're standing by a mountain range."

Garak went over and looked at the map, and was rather horrified. See, Cardassian memories don't wire like human memories, and on top of that, Cardassia has explicit classes in the art of memorization from around grade three and up.

He recognized that map. It was a map from a book he'd read because he was bored-beyond-bored two years ago when business had been mindnumbingly slow and he'd looked up a list of books to read from various cultures. 

That was an Earth book. Hobbit. JRR Tolkien. 

That would make that nasty disgusting little thing back there -Gollum's- boat. 

Ew. 

Very very ew. 

That was nasty. 

Counting heads, there were enough people for there to be One Wizard, thirteen dwarves, one Hobbit and one Gollum. 

Him.

Someone had thought it was a brilliant idea to stuff -him- down in that disgusting little nasty cavern as the squirmy little creepy thingy that ends up dead at the end of the story arc.

The boat was already gross. 

Now everything was gross. 

Given everyone else's expressions, OBrien had read this as a little kid and was on the verge of remembering details. Time to redirect OBrien just to keep anyone ELSE from figuring out he'd got stuffed as the nasty little... NAKED...ew. 

That just wouldn't do! He couldn't let any of them figure out which story this was or when and if they got back and read it, they'd all figure out he'd got popped up as something that didn't even wear clothes. 

He was about to spin the story to bring them back through the mountains to Rivendell when it occurred to him--Gollum had a trinket, a ring, that turned out to be the Doom of All Things Doom for the planet, and the elves had been hellbent on destroying said trinket. And he'd been awkwardly, hellishly stuffed as GOLLUM. By that logic the elves weren't going to be particularly safe for him personally. Besides, back through the mountains meant more Jem Hadar anyway. 

Did they have the trinket though? 

He went over to Bashir. "Did you happen to pick up anything unusual in that little cave back there?"

Bashir held up the little glass eyepiece thing Garak use for tailoring and a bunch of other things. 

Srsly? 

Now his lucky little eyepiece thing was likely Cursed. 

That thing was made on Cardassia in Lakat City. Did that make a difference as to who was where when in this story? 

Sauron the one eyed Dukat. 

Not a fun image there. 

Very frustrating. 

He pocketed the now-cursed eyepiece thing and went over to Kira and OBrien and Keiko. 

"Oh hey!" he said, pretending everything was normal again. "I've seen that map. It's from an old Cardassian children's book."

They all looked like they believed him completely, except for OBrien, but then Garak could say it was a Tuesday on a Tuesday OBrien would probably check the calendar to make sure. 

Pulling from the narrative of an early Cardassian Empire historical event and tying in a few other little details from the actual novels these were, Garak crafted a story that was plausible based on the information they already had. They were a "Scout Party" and it was essential they get through Mirkwood to the other side before the Jem Hadar, something-something bad things dragons and such. 

"Given that this isn't our world, who are they? Why are we the scout party?" OBrien said. 

"We don't have to follow the story," Garak said nonchalantly. "I'm not exactly sure how we all ended up here anyway, but there were sixteen of them, caught between a mountain of the Enemy and a treacherous forest, and there's sixteen of us, caught between a mountain full of Jem Hadar and a treacherous forest." Looking forward toward the forest across the river, "I'm open to suggestions." Garak said. 

Between Sisko being In Charge! and everyone else following what Sisko wanted to do, which, given the info Garak gave them, was -go through the forest-, they had another problem on their hands:

The dwarves had food packs and water packs. 

They all had nothing but their Starfleet Uniforms. 

Nog had one Ferengi granola bar in his pocket and Quark was charging everyone on credit if they wanted to eat it. 

There was another problem as well:

Lord of the Rings was split into Hobbit, and then the trilogy. They were in Hobbit. In the Hobbit, Gandalf and friends had chased the "Necromancer" off somewhere. 

One of them was supposed to be Gandalf and Garak had no idea who. 

He'd gotten squickly stuffed into being Gollum, Bashir was Bilbo, With Kira being the one with the map, she was likely Thorin, Morn was probably Bombur, and after that, who knew? Even with Cardassian memorization skills, who all of the rest of the dwarves wasn't something that had been relevant when he'd read the books out of sheer boredom. To paraphrase the average grade school student: "I didn't know there was going to be a quiz on it!?" 

And what to do about the now-cursed eyepiece? later that night, sitting around a campfire Jadzia built, Quark complained and Morn yammered incessantly, Garak took it out and stared at it. 

Theoretically, it was "precious" and "addicting" and crazy-making, and according to the novel, anyway, he really wasn't supposed to have it anymore. Gollum had ended up dead about ten seconds later after he'd gotten Said Cursed Item back, but that wasn't for another 3 1/2 books. Then again, which things of their reality were crisscrossed with what parts of what novel where? 

WHOSE BRILLIANT IDEA WAS THIS ANYWAY?! Creepy little nekkid little ring-obsessed ew thing. 

The group trekked through the forest, sticking to the road as much as possible. In Hobbit, when they'd gone off the trail, they'd been nearly eaten by spiders and the whole thing was a disgusting, sticky mess. 

Now, well, Federation Teamwork was good for something, and they practically lived on Jadzia's surprise hunting skills and Keiko's biology awareness of what was toxic and what wasn't. 

It looked like they'd be just fine without hitting spiders at all when one of the -spiders- decided to come bother them ON THE TRAIL. 

Leeta -freaked- and ran right off into the forest. 

Bashir ran right after her. 

Cursing everything, Garak went right after Bashir, going into hyperobserve mode. 

What if this forest not only was dark and hard to navigate, but also dark and hard to navigate and -enchanted-. There were many, many sci fi and fantasy stories of Cardassian wizards and grand masters trapping people in forests that were mazes, mazes that mucked with gravity, and labyrinths explicitly designed to trap people forever. 

He was already really observant, but in this mode, he clicked all the memorization training and general awareness. 

Wait. 

He was a freaking tailor. He took a little spool of thread out of his pocket and tied it to something where the road was still visible. It wouldn't give him far, but it would give him long enough to catch Bashir at least. 

Leeta? 

That depended a lot on Leeta.

Frankly, especially after hearing some of the sappy saccharine-romantic things Bashir was yelling after her, Garak rather hoped the forest was enchanted enough to eat her anyway. It had started out all so nicely, love at first sight for Garak, anyway, and then OBrien got in the way and now Leeta and now just about everybody. 

It was infuriating. 

The forest dropped off into a ridge and the roots of the tree jerked up and around and backward and he lost the trail for a minute as everything that had marked the trail -moved-. 

"Creeeeeeak. Get that curse ring away from me. Creeeeak."

"It's not a ring it's a oh nevermind." Garak wasn't even sure what he was talking to. Something from the novel's world or it would have likely referred to it as the "eyepiece". "Have you seen two people? A human and a Bajoran?"

The -tree- backed up. "Evil ring. Evil ring."

Ah yes. 

Ents. 

"I'd be very happy to be on my way, "ring" and all if you wouldn't mind telling me where the two ran off to."

And the tree walked off, likely fleeing at top speed given how slowly Ents' perception of time was. 

And now he was lost in the forest, standing in the single beam of light coming in where the Ent had been. 

Well, not lost. -GARAK- wasn't lost. Garak was smart enough to have used the damn string.

But he'd lost -Bashir- in the forest, and that was worse. 

Yes it was totally a Cursed Item, but it was also a Cursed Item that happened to be a freaking eyepiece. Turned on its side, it had a nightvision program on it somewhere that might make it a bit easier to see where they'd gone off to.

When he took it out of his pocket, it hit the light--and the light bounced off and splayed out -data-. 

Massive amounts of data about the Founders and the Dominion and the Jem Hadar and the Hundred. Flicking the data sideways, there were maps of the Gamma Quadrant and trails and experiments of the Iconian Gateways and a "Guardian of Forever", and other wormholes, and a whole massive file on what the Dominion knew about the Borg. 

That stuff thoroughly HAD NOT BEEN ON THERE before getting stuffed here. It was pretty much JUST a freaking eyepiece. The part where shining a light through it suddenly generated enough info to get out of the war back home was not part of this tool last time! 

He flicked it in and out of the light a few times. "Precious indeed," he said. 

"Garak?" 

Bashir! 

He stuffed the now-actually-"precious", or if not "precious", legitimately -useful- eyepiece back in his pocket. "Have you found Leeta?" he asked. 

"No, and this forest seems to move on its own."

"It -does- move on its own. I happened to have startled a tree. Look right there, that's where its roots were before it walked off in that direction."

"Oh dear. We're lost."

"I don't know about -that-," Garak said. Given how things in this forest moved, they might very well BE lost, but the string didn't feel like anything had broken it, but he didn't want Bashir to put his faith in him without it being secure. Twirling the string back around his fingers, he headed all the way back to the trail.

When it was visible through the trees, Bashir stopped them. "We can't very well leave Leeta!" 

Garak squelched the slight "wanna bet?" face. "In the novel this is from," he said, switching out an actual Cardassian story of labyrinths and string for Hobbit's Actual Mirkwood, "The forest was a crisscross of hills and trenches and trees that will craft themselves into walls with innocent-looking openings and then slam themselves behind you when you're done." 

"Well YOU came in," Bashir said. 

Garak held up the thread. "I had a way back -out-. We can go looking for your Leeta but either with the rest of the group's help or only as far as the string takes us."

"You mentioned a novel?" said a voice off a bit behind them.

They both turned and there was a Vulcan on a horse. 

Not an elf on a horse. 

A Vulcan.

On a horse. 

With the Vulcan hairline and Vulcan clothes and an elf's horse with elven horse gear. 

Pulling instantly from the title of the labyrinth novel: "Ah yes, 'Miata's Children'".

"Hmm. The half-human mentioned this place is likely a different novel, Hobbit? There's a song to it." 

Uh oh. 

Bashir didn't catch the reference. "Hobbit" was from Earth, but it was both ancient and not part of the typical Federation education. "How well do you know this forest?" he asked the Vulcan. "We've lost one of our party, we encountered an unusually large spider and she ran from it off in this direction."

"We'll search for her," the Vulcan said. 

They went to the rest of the party there on the trail and from there to the Wood Elves. 

Who were All Vulcan. 

And all rather miffed that their leader was Spock. 

Unfortunately, Spock apparently knew the Actual Novel. That could make things... gross. The party of fifteen-sans-Leeta who was still being searched for walked into the Wood Elf Hall.

"Sir, how well do you know the novels we've been placed in?" the Vulcan was saying to Weyoun. 

"Novel?" Weyoun with four Jem Hadar soldiers was waiting ahead of them. 

Spock stood up. "Between what I know of our universe and what I know of this novel-world, it wouldn't be logical to give you any access to what you're looking for." 

"What are you looking for?" Sisko asked. 

Weyoun turned around and saw all sixteen DS9ers and face lit up like a little kid. 

"Sisko!" Weyoun cooed. "Would you mind talking some -sense- into this gentleman? I'm only here looking for the Monocle because it might have data about how to get OUT of here and back into our own world!"

One, if they were the Bad Guys, they were early. A whole half a novel too early. 

Two, they knew it was a "monocle" and not a ring. 

-Sisko- had no idea what he was talking about.

Yet. 

"Between Ambassador Spock not wanting to give it to you and me not really having any reason to acquiesce to any of your requests in either universe," Sisko said, "WHAT Monocle?"

Not that Garak was going to say anything about it of course, and luckily, Bashir had missed the entire mention of the "monocle" and was chatting with someone about Leeta being missing and might not have remembered it anyway. 

Ambassador Spock and the other Vulcans shooed Weyoun and his Hench-Hadar out of the hall.

"Fifteen of you?" Spock said, then counted off on his fingers. "Given that this is supposed to be The Hobbit, there should be either thirteen or fourteen."

Everyone looked at Garak and for a second there, he thought everybody knew about Gollum! Oh wait-- this was about the "Cardassian Novel".

"We'd been going on the assumption it was the story "Miata's Children" because the map Kira has just fits it so well."

Note to self: never let Bashir anywhere near that novel. There was no map, it was just a title he'd dropped earlier in the forest because it was relevant to the idea of the forest being a maze with a string guide. Literally nothing else in the entire story would match this one.

"As literature is derived from the imagination, this world and that map may have similarities to your "Miata's Children", but the data I remember from having read it is that this is the wood elf city near the Lonely Mountain, and that you're all here in replacement of the thirteen dwarves and one Hobbit."

That was odd. Reading was an art form on Cardassia. Vulcans... since when did Vulcans read novels?

Having gone through a forest for days, being in what civilization the Vulcans could craft out of the elf civilization they'd replaced was a relief. 

Decent food. 

Actual beds. 

Actual washing up. Technically, while there had been multiple rivers, he'd not had a proper washing up since having to touch Gollum's disgusting little boat. 

Oooh Gollum was gross.

Speaking of which--the only reason for hiding the story from the others was the "ew factor", and the "Monocle" had information relevant to their actual universe, what Garak needed to do now was figure out a way to get them all out of here. 

Sitting there on the bed staring at it, the worst bit was that it was a useful little tool on its own before they all got tossed into this universe, and now it was cursed, and if and when they ever got back to their world, he'd have to get a new one anyway. 

A bird on on the windowsill dropped down and became Odo. 

Oops. 

"I thought you were up to something!" Odo said. "That's the Monocle Weyoun wanted, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Garak turned it over in his hands. "It's a tailoring tool I have from back on the station. I was just going to use it to fix the scuff on my pants."

"It's -a- monocle, anyway." Odo said, getting closer to look at it. Garak stood up across the bed, dodging him. One way to check to see if their universe's relevance prevailed or this one did was to see what -Odo- saw when light came through the monocle. 

He took it over to the window, cleaning it off like it was nothing but the old friendly tool it used to be. 

"I really don't see what all the fuss is about," he said, holding it up to the light. 

The whole wall behind him filled up with data and he kept his back to it, still mussing around with the monocle. 

"Garak, stop moving it around!" Odo cried. "This is very certainly the monocle Weyoun was referring to. Turn around and look, but don't jiggle it around so much." 

Garak made a show of being surprised. "I had this back on the station, and I can assure you, back there, it certainly didn't have THIS on it." 

He flicked the data around haphazardly until it showed the detailed Gamma Quadrant map about the Borg. He almost said something about it, then remembered--the One Monocle To Spy On Them All might be cursed, and only showing him data that would make it just as addicting as it was in the books. Then again, if it didn't have data on it, why would Weyoun want it? Or it might be doing the same thing to them, showing them information about things they wanted to know. For all it was worth, the information it had might even be completely false. 

"Odo, what do -you- see when you look at this?" Garak asked.

Odo was nearly petting the map, pointing at bits of stars. "How to get... home."

"Home from here in Mirkwood?" Dangit! Cursed Evil Monocle was tricking them and they'd be stuck here forever. Garak was seeing a map of the Gamma Quadrant.

"Er, no. Over here is likely the wormhole, and then from there--" Odo continued, but it appeared to be that they were seeing the same things. They still might be stuck, but at least the data on the eyepiece was "real". 

Odo gathered everyone for a meeting. By now, the other Vulcans had found Leeta, so they were all the way up at sixteen. One more than there was any reason to be coming in from the novel. 

"We've found the Monocle Weyoun was referring to, and now we know why he wanted it." Odo explained. "Now, how it got here, or how it has what it has on there, we don't know, but--" 

By now the sun had set, so Garak shone the pocket flashlight through it.

"Is everyone seeing the same thing?" he asked.

Yes, yes they were. 

Whew.

"I know this story because my human mother insisted I read it. In the Hobbit, back in Rivendell, Elrond looked through Kira's map and showed information," Ambassador Spock said. "Odd that we seem to have switched locations, but we seem to be doing that very same thing here. Where did you get that monocle?"

"I brought it along with me from our world," Garak said. "It's nothing but an old tailoring tool." 

Bashir didn't help matters much: "You also used it to tap into the Cardassian computer system back on Bajor."

Aaaaand everyone was looking at him again. 

"Cardassia is well known for its excellent filing systems; that little tool is part of the user interface." He moved the flashlight off it and it quit beaming things. "The part where it converts any light into a data sequence isn't even part of its normal abilities! Although it might be useful. I should look up similar tools when we get back."

Garak handed it to Bashir to look through again. "The information in here isn't the same things," he said, going a bit crosseyed looking at it. Ah, so darling. 

"In the original story--" Spock started, 

Uh oh.

"--The person with the item everyone was after was a 'hobbit', brought along under the superstition based around the number thirteen. The question is: is this monocle here in place of the ring the hobbit found?" 

Pulling from the original vaguely historical story of the Scouting Party and jamming it up against the novel it thoroughly Wasn't: "That's still assuming this is your novel to begin with," Garak said. "In 'Miata's Children', the scouting party had a banner with crucial information. I don't know about you, but this all looks rather more like crucial information than it does a ring." 

Pls don't go there pls don't go there pls don't go there. 

"But you didn't find it," Bashir said. "I did." 

He went there.

The phrase "Icky naked Gollumses" went right through Garak's mind before he could push it back down into the depths of Ew where it belonged. 

"If that's supposed to be the...ring?...from the story--" Bashir started. 

"OHYEAH it was a ring!" OBrien said. "I remember that as a kid because I asked my Mum if her ring was magical too."

shut up shut up shutup. 

"--wouldn't that make me the "hobbit" then?" Bashir finished. "Then what would that make you?"

Spock started to talk and Garak talked right over him, pulling the first name that came to mind and hoping it wasn't something Bashir'd come across yet. "Captain Pottrik. He carried the banner in the novel."

That wasn't a book. That wasn't even a character. Garak was making this up on the spot out of nothing at all just to keep anyone from ever associating him with Gollum. 

"Like Pottrik from Pottrik Syndrome?" Bashir asked. 

Was THAT where he'd heard the name? The syndrome Marritza had pretended to have to cover up his Yarim Fel Syndrome.

"It's not an -uncommon- name," Garak quipped. It rather sort of was. 

Everyone was looking at him and it was time to change the subject before he had to sit down and WRITE a novel just to prove it existed. 

"In any case, the important thing is that we figure out how to get out of here. Unfortunately," And he finally dared to look over at Spock again, "In 'Miata's Children', the entire thing is basically a maze--with no way out given the technology they had. We're going to have to rely on -our- technology, from -our world- and hope we come across something useful." 

"How did we -get here anyway-?" Jadzia asked. "Somehow, whether it's Hobbit or Miata's Children, we're -here- which isn't where we're supposed to be. Does that mean Captain Pottrik and everyone else is back in our world?" 

SQUICK! 

Garak nearly dropped the monocle and it took a massive amount of self control not to chipperly walk out of the room and throw up. 

Spock thumbed through the images again. "This one is the Guardian of Forever," he said. "And here's how to bring it here."

Oh good. 

A way out. 

Spock followed the directions on the data, and after much coaxing, they figured out how to convince it to let them back into their own timeline on their own Deep Space Nine. It had the added benefit of now the Dominion was missing nearly half its army of Jem Hadar and one of the Weyoun clones, still trapped back in wherever that was. Being back here in their own world, the "Monocle" was back to being a nice, normal, non-cursed tailoring tool, but what data they remembered was still valid and incredibly useful. 

Assuming all the universes had crisscrossed back together where they were supposed to be, no, there wasn't suddenly thirteen dwarves, one hobbit, and one Gandalf running around Deep Space Nine--and best of all, no disgusting Gollums mucking up the tailor shop. 

And any guilt of what exactly happened by abandoning that other world, well, they did have the evil cursed "One Monocle to Spy On Them All" out of the universe. 

Everything was all well and good and going along great. 

Until.

It was nearly six weeks after they'd gone on that bizarre adventure and it was lunchtime as normal. Bashir clicked down two data novels on the table. 

"Starting in from the Cardassian side of everything you said, I never was able to find that map. I read all the way through "Miata's Children", and cross-referenced Pottrik enough times to know it really is a rather rare, regional name anyway--"

Well this was about to get very embarrassing. 

"--Then I started reading the novel Spock mentioned, and got to around Chapter Five." He held up the novel on the data pad. "Have you read Hobbit?"

"Maybe." Garak said. The ubiquitous third way out to a yes or no question. 

Bashir gave him a look for that one and held up the pad. "Of the tiny bit I did read, if you really went thorough ALL THAT TROUBLE to hide whatever owned that ring was like, I'm going to just give you the benefit of the doubt and not read the rest of that series." 

"THANK YOU."

Problem solved.


End file.
